Are We Losing Sight Of What Beta Means?

how are you calling me elitist? look at my crap...I haven't posted much either...

the point was that he hasn't posted much except for this melodramatic thread OP and some responses...

I was highlighting the fact that he is a likely troll candidate...

Just want some more gameplay tbh

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Shinjin wrote:

Thank you all for the discussion. I really didn't think it would add up to much. I wanted to get a sense of the beta testers views toward this style of 'early access'. I particularly liked EDamodred's response. It made me think of alternatives views such as: the end players don't mind an unfinished game thus opting to pay for beta access. So many variables, so little time. Again, the thread was meant to pose a few questions about 'current' gaming trends and I think most of you really made some valid points. I find it interesting that some of you posted from a business side perspective and others from a consumer/player/tester side. I am not a developer nor am I from the press, the question just arose when I first heard about paying for 'beta' access, hence the thread. Hope it helps. Thanks again.

*EDIT: Typo's, it's late.

Well, the thing is... It's a F2P game, and I have no reason to believe GGG will ever go "pay 2 win" - and they also interact with players, update frequently, and have stuck to their word on as much as I've reasonably expected them to. So I also have several reasons to believe they would rather have a genuinely accessible game that (is already) will be fun for everyone, regardless of whether they put any money into it or not.

Buuut paying for beta access? I know it's a "trendy" thing to do in the industry, but I'm to the opinion that it's actually the best option they could opt for. Since it's a F2P game, only people who would already be interested in what they're going to be selling will buy something; that is, plenty of people will do it for the beta access obviously, but if they do, they are extremely likely to already be willing to become repeat customers in the future - and thus the people the beta (and the final game) is actually going to receive the most input from.

Personally, I don't know how the more specific details of beta access are going to keep working in the future (e.g. whether or not I would need to "buy" a beta key to be guaranteed a spot for when the next phase rolls out, etc etc) or even what they're going to offer or if the purchases are going to just apply the status to your account or grant redeemable keys, but I'm still going to invest what I can in what they offer at this venture. I already gave my only recruit-a-friend key to my best friend, but we usually play most games with two more friends of ours, so opening up these prepurchases is a win-win in my book.

That said, I'm a bit sad GGG didn't announce it on April Fools', complete with a mock-up of the first "cosmetic-only" item: The Space Monocle, which boosts all three primary stats by 400,000 and grants you the exclusive Orbital Bombardment ability (that kills everything, including the server) for the low, low price of $60,000.

How is GGG's model of paying money up front in the form of some form of cash shop credit to be used after the game goes live for guaranteed access to the beta different then Blizzard's model of beta access?

Well as we can see from this official post on the Diablo 3 forums http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3870807237 to even have a chance to even get into the Diablo 3 beta you have to have had at some point supported Blizzard by buying one of their games. Heck you can't even post on the Diablo 3 forums unless you have already paid Blizzard money.

So as I see it the only difference between the 2 business models for granting beta access is:

GGG- pay money up front to be used for assorted products in the cash shop after the game goes live for a guaranteed beta access.

Blizzard- pay money up front for a product you have already used(previous Blizzard game) for a chance to get into the Diablo 3 beta.

I won't even go into the difference between the 2 companies concepts of what their betas are for.

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velrac wrote:

How is GGG's model of paying money up front in the form of some form of cash shop credit to be used after the game goes live for guaranteed access to the beta different then Blizzard's model of beta access?

Well as we can see from this official post on the Diablo 3 forums http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3870807237 to even have a chance to even get into the Diablo 3 beta you have to have had at some point supported Blizzard by buying one of their games. Heck you can't even post on the Diablo 3 forums unless you have already paid Blizzard money.

So as I see it the only difference between the 2 business models for granting beta access is:

GGG- pay money up front to be used for assorted products in the cash shop after the game goes live for a guaranteed beta access.

Blizzard- pay money up front for a product you have already used(previous Blizzard game) for a chance to get into the Diablo 3 beta.

I won't even go into the difference between the 2 companies concepts of what their betas are for.

OP already said he was interested in justifications, "it's the trend" has kinda been pointed out. Viciously.

Really though, it's probably about time people stop throwing down the gauntlet between PoE and D3 and using it as the only baseline comparison for dungeon crawl ARPGs for every single thing possible. At this rate, fanboyism will have hit such a peak that comparisons will be drawn over whether or not inscribing the initials for one of the games on an object will in fact make it work more efficiently due to its superiority in shorthand titling within the next two weeks.

As I know GGG make this game by themselves without any finance help.This is awesome game althought it is done by a small group of people.I think they could do some thing like trading beta keys.If you dont wanna paid just wait...Crazy game...Cant forget the weekend ^_^

I am so happy someone made this post. Here's how it is:

THE DEVELOPER sees beta as an opportunity to test out servers, player-balancing, skills, bugfixes, exploits, and a ton of other variables that you just can't predict without adding that x factor that is "the player".

THE PLAYER sees beta as an opportunity to try out a game before it comes out. They want to enjoy the game. If it's not enjoyable, many will quit beta and not purchase the game when it comes out, because they judge beta as a demo.

You see the problems that can come from this?

Here's the simple answer:

Those few players who "get it" and understand what beta is really for, invite them to the closed beta stage.

OPEN BETA IS "DEMO" FOR AN MMO. Never forget that.

I see many games go into open beta too early. Rise of Immortals, here's looking at you. I saw many people jump in, realize the horrible balancing issues with the characters, and quit back to playing League of Legends.

Games that will get open beta right: Guild Wars 2, TERA Online.

Feel free to disagree with me, but I've been playing MMOs since they were called MUDs (Pre-Everquest) and have been beta-testing for over a decade. This has never changed.

Nadante, unless the game is horribly broken (Like the MobA you mentioned, dear god that game...) the effectively free marketing and amount of people that get interested and invested in the game is usually far higher than the dropout rate.

Even then having people quit your game tends to give very valuable info on the weakest areas of the game.

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Nadante wrote:

I am so happy someone made this post. Here's how it is:

THE DEVELOPER sees beta as an opportunity to test out servers, player-balancing, skills, bugfixes, exploits, and a ton of other variables that you just can't predict without adding that x factor that is "the player".

THE PLAYER sees beta as an opportunity to try out a game before it comes out. They want to enjoy the game. If it's not enjoyable, many will quit beta and not purchase the game when it comes out, because they judge beta as a demo.

You see the problems that can come from this?

Here's the simple answer:

Those few players who "get it" and understand what beta is really for, invite them to the closed beta stage.

OPEN BETA IS "DEMO" FOR AN MMO. Never forget that.

I see many games go into open beta too early. Rise of Immortals, here's looking at you. I saw many people jump in, realize the horrible balancing issues with the characters, and quit back to playing League of Legends.

Games that will get open beta right: Guild Wars 2, TERA Online.

Feel free to disagree with me, but I've been playing MMOs since they were called MUDs (Pre-Everquest) and have been beta-testing for over a decade. This has never changed.

I... don't actually see an opinion to disagree with in there? You pretty much just stated some facts - I'm not even sure whether you're for or against the direction PoE is taking. I guess one thing I can disagree on factually is no, you have not been playing MMOs since they were called MUDs. You have been playing MMOs since they were called graphical MUDs, and you were playing their spiritual precursors, plain MUDs, before those. :P

However, I do think you can't really judge this game based on knowledge of just about any other MMO. The absolute closest I can think of is World of Tanks, which is still in (.7.x!) open beta and is regularly wringing money from the necks of its players that like to stay competitive. I believe the Russian servers let you purchase currency on the closed beta servers, which were reset, but not entirely sure on that. WoT has gone downhill due to developer infighting and pay to win, though.

I'm not sure if PoE is going to make the leap to open beta relatively soon-ish, but it's already got a fair amount of content - and it's free, so you can kind of reinstall at any time to see if things have improved.

Just a little thing to note about WoT (been playing it since the EU beta), it has been released for a while. 6.0 was the release version I think. But yes WoT is an example on how not to do microtransactions, while it's still playable I've barely touched it the last few months.